Reviews

Sorry Please Thank You by Charles Yu

lyriclorelei's review against another edition

dark lighthearted reflective medium-paced

4.0

An enjoyable collection, though some got a little too meta or repetitive in the ideas/themes.

cattywampus's review against another edition

3.0

Imaginative and playful for the most part. I thought that Standard Loneliness Package was a particularly good read -- and a good narrative / conceptualization of how humans seek to off-load their pain and not have to *feel* it (myself included). The second story in the collection was more funny, less conceptual (or if there was some deeper concept, I missed it) about a zombie coming into a department store. And then after that... well I kinda lost the thread of the stories. Was likely just my state of mind, but despite my best efforts to focus, I just couldn't get into the stories.

marcella's review against another edition

fast-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

Most of these stories didn't quite click for me, but Open was excellent. I also liked Standard Loneliness Package. It's weird, because I liked the concepts and I have been thinking about it now that I'm finished, but I didn't find them compelling as I was reading them. Maybe an audiobook is just the wrong way to read reflective or speculative fiction. I think they got bleaker as the collection went on and the last one was jarring.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide

The last story is a suicide note

kimbekaw's review against another edition

2.0

I just had a hard time grasping the metaphors Yu's stories were trying to make. Thus, the end of each short story felt empty. I did like Yu's writing style, though, and some of the story concepts interested me. But, Yu just went way too abstract that I wonder if he even knew what he was writing about.

wordlover's review against another edition

4.0

Quirky, creative short stories, a combo of Ray Bradbury, Ted Chiang and George Saunders, with similar 10 Minutes in the Futurism...

dolorousrattus's review against another edition

2.0

2.17 average

Standard loneliness package - ****

First person shooter - *

Troubleshooting - ***

Hero absorbs major damage - ***

Human for beginners: chapter 5 - **

Inventory - **

Note to self - *

Yeoman - **

Designer emotion 67 - **

The book of categories - ***

Adult contemporary - **

Sorry please thank you - *

daneekasghost's review against another edition

4.0

Enjoyed almost all of these stories although there weren't any that really floored me. Yu works very much within the sci-fi genre, always with a wink. If you liked or didn't like 'How to Live Safely...' this one will give the same reaction.

My favorite was 'Note to Self' about a letter to oneself from an alternate universe.

satyridae's review against another edition

2.0

As a rule I'm not a big short story fan. I dug Yu's [b:How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe|7726420|How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe|Charles Yu|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320449300s/7726420.jpg|10491121] so much I thought I'd give these a try. They are wildly creative and to my eye also wildly uneven. Not unexpectedly, Yu plays with the nature of reality and perceptions and illusion. Some of it was terribly clever and some of it was too clever by half. The story I liked best struck me as what [b:Redshirts|13055592|Redshirts|John Scalzi|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348617890s/13055592.jpg|18130445] wanted to be and wasn't.

Worth reading if only to witness genius writing running amok, playing and gamboling in the sketchier regions of the mind.

jillheather's review against another edition

2.0

I can tell he's a good writer. I just don't like his work.

barrynorton's review against another edition

5.0

Awesome find at City Lights. Very Vonnegut and more than a little PKDickian.